Name: Celal Et Kebap Balgat
Address: Oğuzlar, Çetin Emeç Blv No:60 D:B, Çankaya, Ankara, 06520, TR
Telephone: (0312) 220 58 63
Price range: €€
Rating: 4.4

Türkiye

Turkey

Ankara

Çankaya

Celal Et Kebap Balgat

Thick slices of aubergine threaded onto a flat skewer alternately with balls of hand-chopped lamb, grilled over charcoal until the aubergine collapses and the meat chars, then slid off onto lavash with grilled peppers and tomato: patlıcanlı kebap is the Gaziantep kebab that depends on the vegetable as much as the meat. It is a summer dish in the south-east, made when the thin, pale local aubergines are in season, and it appears on menus from Antep to Adana and Şanlıurfa under the same name or as patlıcan kebabı. The construction is the point. The aubergine is not a side; it is cut to the same diameter as the meat, pressed against it on the skewer, and the fat rendering from the lamb bastes it as it cooks, so each slice arrives soft and smoky and tasting of the meat it sat next to. In Antep it is often finished in the oven on a tray with a tomato sauce poured over, which is a legitimate second form.

The meat is the Antep kebab mixture: fatty lamb, often with some tail fat, chopped with a zırh until fine but not pasty, seasoned with salt, black pepper and sometimes a little red pepper, kneaded, rested cold and rolled into balls slightly flattened to match the aubergine. The aubergines are long, slim varieties, cut into rounds two to three centimetres thick with the skin left on so they hold together, sometimes salted and rinsed first. They are threaded onto wide skewers in alternation, aubergine, meat, aubergine, pressed tight, and grilled over hot charcoal for ten to fifteen minutes, turned often, until the aubergine skin is blistered and the flesh gives completely and the meat is browned. The skewer is slid onto a bed of lavash that has been warmed and often rubbed with the drippings, with charred green peppers and tomato alongside, parsley and onion with sumac, and sometimes a spoon of butter poured over.

Judge the aubergine first, because it is the component most often wrong: it should be fully soft all the way through, creamy inside its charred skin, and it should have absorbed fat and flavour from the meat; a firm, pale, spongy slice means the skewer came off too early. The meat should be juicy and coarsely textured, seasoned simply, with char on the outside. The alternation should be visible on the plate, not two meatballs and one slice of aubergine. Mark down bitter or seedy aubergine, meat that has dried out while the aubergine caught up, a skewer cooked under a gas grill or in an oven only, which gives no smoke, and lavash that is dry because the drippings went to waste. The tray version with tomato sauce should be judged as a bake, with the sauce tasting of fresh tomato rather than paste.

Patlıcanlı kebap

Hand-chopped lamb and tail fat, seasoned with little more than salt and red pepper, pressed along a long flat skewer, grilled over charcoal and served on flatbread with grilled peppers, tomato, onion with sumac and parsley: Adana kebap carries the name of its city for a reason. It comes from Adana in southern Türkiye, where the name has been a registered geographical indication since 2005, with rules on the meat (lamb from animals under a year old, shoulder, leg and brisket), the fat (tail fat, about one part to four or five of meat) and the knife (a zırh, the wide curved blade, not a mincer). Its relatives are easy to confuse: Urfa kebap is the same construction without the heat, and a beyti is a kebab rolled in lavash with yoghurt and tomato sauce. A true Adana is spicy, coarse-textured and tastes first of lamb and charcoal.

The meat is chopped by hand until it is a rough paste with visible pieces of fat, then kneaded with salt and flakes of dried red pepper from the region, sometimes a spoon of red pepper paste for colour; onion and garlic are not in the registered recipe. The mixture rests cold so the fat firms up, then is pressed by hand along a flat skewer two or three fingers wide, pinched into ridges so it grips, and laid directly over a bed of oak or fruitwood charcoal with no grate between. The cook turns it often and presses the bread onto the meat as it grills to catch the dripping fat. Four to six minutes is enough. Ground meat from a machine will not stay on the skewer unless egg or bread is added, which is why minced versions taste of filler.

Score the texture first: the cut face should show distinct bits of meat and fat, not a smooth sausage grain, and the skewer should hold together without binders. The outside wants to be lightly charred at the ridges, the inside juicy and faintly pink. Dryness means too little fat or an overcooked skewer; a grey, bouncy interior means minced meat. The heat should build on the second bite, not scorch on the first. Expect fat-soaked lavash underneath, long grilled green peppers, a tomato half and sliced onion with sumac; a glass of şalgam or ayran is the usual drink. Mark down a kebab served on a plate without bread, beef passed off as lamb, and any Adana that arrives mild, which is an Urfa with the wrong name.

Adana kebap

Mekan orta üst sınıfta konumlandırabileceğimiz bir kebapçı. Vale hizmeti, bekleme salonu, masalarla ilgilenen garsonların tavrı ile gayet şık bir mekan. Menü içerisindeki fiyatlandırmalar beklediğimden daha uygundu. Ortalama aspava fiyatlarıyla aynı fiyatta daha kaliteli bir hizmet alıyorsunuz. Mekanda göze çarpan mahalle kebabı içerisinde adana ciğer ve kuzuya yer vermekle birlikte dükkana has bir tabak 650TL fiyatıyla da gayet cazip onu almadım ancak bir dahaki sefere onu alırım.

Patlıcan kebabındaki patlıcanlar oldukça rahat soyuldu. Etli ve yumusaktılar. Acı değillerdi. Kebapta yer alan etler lezzetliydi. Ancak patlıcan ete göre daha tatsız gelmişti. Birlikte yememe rağmen etin tadını çekmemişti.

Yine de denenebilir. 

Geçen hafta bu güzel restoranı tercih ettik. Restorana gitmeden önce menüdeki yiyeceklerin görüntüsüne, içeriğine ve fiyatına instagram hesaplarındaki öne çıkarılanlar bölümünden ulaşabiliyorsunuz.
Cumartesi günü çok yoğun olduğu için telefonla rezervasyon yaptırmanızı öneririm. Biz restorandan çıkarken kapıda 7 8 müşteri sıra bekliyordu, restoran doluydu.
Masadaki ikramlar lezzetliydi. Ben mahalle kebabı tercih ettim adanası çok lezzetliydi, dana şiş yumuşaktı, ciğer güzeldi. Masadaki herkes memnun ayrıldı porsiyonlar gayet doyurucuydu. En son gelen künefe de iyiydi. Fotoğraftaki kuzu kaburgayı da yiyenler çok beğendi.

Masadaki peçete 1 taneydi tuz kimyon karabiber yoktu biz isteyince getirdiler bu yüzden biraz puan kırdım. Servis güzeldi çalışanlar iyiydi ortam güzeldi.


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